Mobile Core 2 Duos To Launch Next Week ?

Well, it looks like it's time to start drooling. Intel's mobile Core 2 Duos (codenamed Merom) could be launching alongside their desktop brethren when the Conroe chips become available on July 23rd. Merom had originally been scheduled to debut in August, with general availability occuring at the end of that month. However, this new schedule means that we could easily see Merom chips ship by mid-August, getting the processors to consumers faster than anticipated.

The first set of Merom processors will be drop-in compatible with the "Yonah" Core Duo chips, meaning that you can simply replace the Yonah processor with a Merom one and, at most, you might need a BIOS update. These initial Merom processors will feature a 667 MHz front-side bus and clock in at either 1.66GHz, 1.8GHz (these two will feature 2 MB of L2 cache), 2.0GHz, 2.16GHz, and 2.33 GHz (these three will feature 4 MB of L2 cache). Prices for the new chips will run anywhere from $209-$637 (in lots of 1000, meaning that consumers will end up paying more), and the price of "Yonah" Core Duos should lower come September. So, get ready world; the Core 2 Duo is here.